Saturday, February 24, 1945

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Mason City Globe-Gazette (Newspaper) - February 24, 1945, Mason City, Iowa NORTH IOWAS DAILY PAPER EDITED FOR THE HOME COM OEPABTJUENT QF HISTORY AXD ARCHIVES DES UQIKC9 THE NEWSPAPER THAT MAKES ALL NORTH IOWANS NEIGHBORS VOL U Associated Press and United Pxess FuU Leased Wires Cents Copy MASON CITY IOWA SATURDAY FEBKUAKY Z4 1945 NO 119 INSIDE WASHINGTON War Agency Chieftains Know Their Publicity Central Press Capital Staff agency heads are extremely anxious that they and their agencies get proper ipublicity and thus when a news story breaks in their favor The other day wire services carried from A 11 en town Pa the story that man power ceilings were being placed on non essential plants Harold L Ickes to force work ers into war in dustry Allentown appeared to be get ting credit for introducing the manpower ceiling plan and there was Hades to pay in WMC head quarters in the capital Someone had blundered The original plan it appeared was to let cities like Allentown announce imposition ot ceilings but it did not work so well heads hurriedly called in their chief publicity man and told him to get busy explaining that the ceiling plan was strictly a Washington idea The pressagent found difficulty selling the ex planation to newsmen and its a safe bet that WMC wont let such a story slip away from it again Secretary of the Interior Harold L Ickes also knows the value publicity about his dozen or more war agency titles Ickes has news ground out for him on publicity releases and an announcement from his petroleum administration for war office is typical of their nature A PAW release usually starts with an announcement by PAW Administrator Ickes and a couple of paragraphs later his deputy Balph K Davies takes up the nar rative backing up whatever Ickes has said The Ickes name how ever always is first although most of the story usually is told by Davies SMASH 5 MILES BEYOND ROER Marines Open Concentrated Attack for Field Look for two War Loan Daigns in 1945 The first will be gin in IVIay or June and the second in the fall perhapsopening in Oc tober Treasury officials expect thfemto be the toughest all drives because prospective buy ers are the same 55 million persons who regularly buy bonds and have boughtheavily since the opening of the war INCH FORWARD AGAINST HEAVY JAP OPPOSITION Yanks Reach Turning Point in Battle for Iwo Island II S Pacific Fleet Headquar ters Guam by a terri fic bombardment from heavy ar tillery aircraft and naval guns of fleet units standing offshore ma rines on Iwo island opened their most concentrated attack ot the 6 day battle Saturday but were only inching forward against virtually unyielding enemy opposition The tanksupported attack was launched from the southwestern top of the airdrome in the mom ing and by noon was making slow progress Admiral Chester W Nimitz reported Terrific resistance from Japa nese artillery small arms and au tomatic weapons made every inch of ground gained a bitter costlj affair The marines appeared however to have reached the turning poin in their conquest of the island having taken Mt Suribachi at the southern end of the island am now being engaged in mopping up operations against remnants of th garrison at that onetime encmj strong point Conditions on the beaches ar generally improving and unload ing of cargo is proceeding At the islands south tip afte scaling Mt Suribachi to secur their rear the marines systemat Jap Plane Pilots have that far away look in their eyes these days Theyre not so eager to com mit suicide for the greater glory of the empire The Nip pilots im pressed by American marksman ship are keeping at a respectful distance during their attacks on American warships As a result the navy has vir tually been forced to discontinue production of 20mm antiaircraft guns and shells and concentrate on the manufacture of the much longer range 40mm antiaircraft weapons Compared with 1942 figures the production of 40mm gun mounts in 1944 was 10 times greater with a similar increase in output of all types of 40mmammunition 1945 the trend will continue In LEATHERNECKS ON THE MOVE Suribachi extinct volcano looms in the background as 4th division marines move up from the beach on Iwo Jima strategic Jap island Feb Suribachi I turned into a beehive of guns by the Nipponese was scaled by the marines who now control it AP wirephoto Report Russians Storming Neisse Spree River Lines Yanks Clear Last Japs Following the Ceremonies of joining the united nations at the state department Salvador Duhart first secretary of the Mex ican embassy was discovered wandering through the fourth floor corridors of the old department building brandishing an appar ently significant pieceof paper Duhart was Mexicos represen tative of the United States rite which was attended by all the united nations envoys in Wash ington The diplomat ran into a group of reporters who equally lost in the mazes of the fourth floor hall ways of the state department were in search of an elevator He ex plained that the piece of paper in his hand was a check which he wastrying to present to the Mexi can division as final settlement payment of the United States Mexican claims agreement How big is the check some one asked Duhart without pausing for breath waved the check and said that it was for 544802014 Geiteral Takes Rurich Without Expecting It With the 9th Armj commanding general of the forces assigned to attack Rurich Friday got that old German city 6 miles north of Juelich somewhat before he expected it He had ordered his infantry men pushing north to stand by for an attack on the town after an artillery barrage He was pacing the floor in his command post waiting for the roar of the open ing guns His field telephone rang Tell the general Rurich is his the caller reported Capt Alcee Peters Monroe La and his doughboys had decided to try to infiltrate and capture Rur ich before the artillery barrage started It worked ically dug out Japanese from pill boxes arid blockhouses cxtendiri even inside the crater of the vpl cario More than 700 lUreadyhav been killed Supplies on the beaches grei from a trickle to a flood as th advance toward the islands cen ter overran Nipponese gun posi tions which had been shelling th debrislittered shore The fight is far from over J communique covering action up 1 6 p m Friday night said in a sectors the enemy is resisting ou advance from concrete pillboxe entrenchments and caves The Nipponese are opposing tl 3 marine divisions with such mot ern weapons as 1000pound rock et mortars presumably fired froi launching platforms They are using deep pillboxe linked by tunnels which wer years in the building and can on be knocked out by a direct she hit flamethrowers or a wel placed hand grenade But the overall significance Saturday mornings communique despite the fact it records limited advances is its strong suggestion the crisis is past Across a beachhead which naval authorities have admitted actually appeared doomed in the early stages engineers have built roads under fire which are getting ashore the necessary equipment for bone crushing blows The outstanding development in the morning communique was stated thus The unloading of supplies is continuing and their rate of move ment across the beaches is con siderably improved in spite of the surf created by recent southeast erly weather Friday afternoon Maj Gen Graves BErskines third marine division landed during a critical hour Wednesday fought on to the south tip of the tworunway Moto yama airfield No 2 It is the last usable airfield on the island in enemy hands The big bomber base knowri as Moto yama airfield No 1 was captured by the 4th marine division Tues day It took from Tuesday to Friday to cover those 700 yards to the second airfield The U S airfield marine divi sion veterans of the Solomons and Guam campaigns is in the center of an enveloping drive aimed at the fighter field On the right Maj Gen Clifton Battling Nazis Near Goerlitz From Manila London Ivan S Konevs first armyen gaged the Germans in a largescaTe tank irTThe no mans land region of Goerlitz southeast of Berlin as the Russians as saulted in force the enemys Neisse and Spree Russian attempts to bridgeheads on the west bank of the Neisse were beaten back the German communique said A Mos cow dispatch declared that Ko nevs troops were bucking a de fense system some 8 to 12 miles deep in trenches and antitank ditches While soviet dispatches did not put Konevs troops far beyond the Neisse it seemed they might be holding several salients well on the Berlin side The German war bulletin said the Russians were thrown back to the north at Goldberg 13 miles southwest of Liegnitz and 36 miles HITLER ASKS SUICIDE FIGHT Sends Message for Party Anniversary London Hitler called on Germany Saturday for a sui cide fight and warned that who ever is weak fails and must per B Gates 4th division gained 300 yards Friday On the left Maj Gem Keller E Rockeys 5th marine division was unable to gain That division is on the southwest coast flanking the menaced airfield It was under mortar fire from Kangoku Rock less than 2000 yards offshore until a 5th fleet destroyer knockec out the position The Japanese Have elaborate de fenses in the rockstrewn north plateau sector defending the fight er field Each burned position ha to be burned or blasted into wreckage Bny your War Bonds ant Stamps from your GlobeGazette I carrier boy due west of the bypassed and surrounded nazi stronghold of Breslau Konevs assault troops have broken into the southern efenses of Breslau and have oiled the Germans back in the lirection of Hirschberg in the tatzbach mountains on the road o Prague To the north Konevs tanks and ommy gunners surged into the treets of Guben and Forst 51 and 7 miles southeast of Berlin gainst German veterans and units Associated Press iorrcspondent Eddy Gilmorc said i a Moscow dispatch that both cities seemed in immediate dan ger of being cut off from com munications The fall of encircled Poznan ast enemyheld city in Poland was expected to speed a soviet smash across the Oder river on a road front toward the doomec nazi capital 30odd miles to the west The reduction of Poznan noi only released troops under 24 generals for the drive on Berlin but cleared the IVIoscowWarsaw Berlin trunk railway and highway as far as the Oder for the move ment of reinforcements and sup plies The last organized German re sistance in Poznan Polands 4th largest city with a prewar popu lation of 272000 was smashed Friday after a monthlong siege daring which Marshal Gregory K Zhukovs first White Russian army raced on 110 miles farther west toward Berlin Some 25000 Germans were kill ed and 23000 captured during the prolonged and bitter battle for Poznan Adolf Hitler ordered the city held at all cost but Major General Matlern the nazi com mander was among the prisoners taken Zhukovs forces also cleared an other encircled German city Fri day Arnswalde 39 miles south east of the Baltic port of Stettin and junction of the DanzigBerlin and PoznanStettin railways Marshal Ivan S Konevs first Ukrainian army meantime broke into Breslau 175 miles southeast of Berlin Twenty city blocks and a number of tank and automobile factories were captured ish Hitler sent this message to a Munich celebration marking the 25th anniversary of the formation of his national socialist program the Berlin radio said He made no personal appearance pleading pressure of affairs He told the party old guard The very last ounce of strength must be thrown into the battle with utmost fanaticism and stub born steadfastness The message said this was the only answer to the mighty allied blows from the east and west Hitler described Germany as an unshakable community of peo ple and predicted an historical turning point in the war would come this year He was vague on this subject and offered no pros pect of any immediate change in Germanys fortunes Hitler denounced what he called the devilish coalition marshalled against Gerinany and appealed to a merciful God who he said gives strength to a man in the difficult times when his life is at stake He declared that all the peoples whose leaders have signed a pact against Germany will sooner or later be victims of those spirits they have invoked today They have given us such a ter rible he declared that there is no greater terror in store for us One hope which he repeated over and over was that Provi would not let the German nation down if it put up a last ditch fight Hitler threatened death to any one who shows himself to be a coward or who even sabotages the fight and declared he valued his own life only to what it is worth to the nation Anyone who did not join the Volksstrum home guard would be annihilated he warned Hitler sent a message saying he could not be with the party stal warts as my sense of duty and work prevent my leaving head quarters even for a moment The German news agency DNB said Hitlers message was read by Secretary of State Hermann Esser at the festive hour held at Mun ich Providence shows no mercy to weak nations but only recognizes the right of existence of sound ant strong nations the message said of 37th division infantrymen fought rom building to building inside the ancient Intramuros Saturday clearing the last Japanese from Manila amid tragic scenes of Nip ponese brutality Fierce fighting In this closing phase of the threeweeks battle or the Philippine capital was an nounced by Gen Douglas MacAr thur who also disclosed American troops had invaded a second small sland Biri to complete control of San Bernardino straits between Luzon and Samar Halfstarved bayonetled beaten and raped civilians held by the doomed Japanese garrison inside the centuriesold Intramuros dur ing the twoweek American siege were treated at field hospitals bu many noncombatant dead re mained among the nibble The Japanese commander of the old walled city had not replied to an American offer that he and his man would be permitted honor able surrender if the civilians held as virtual hostages were released The enemy appeared determin ed to fight and die there Three days of shelling the foot thick northeast wall came t a thundering climaxearly Friday In one hour 7000 shells thuddet into the medieval masonry The wall was breached in tw places after this most conccn tratcd ground shelling of the Pa cific war The third battalion or the 12911 egiment under Col John D rederick of Springfield 111 the ashed across a wide boulevar nd an old golf course which wa moat and leaped into th ntramuros to engage in handto hand combat with the nearcraze defenders Simultaneously the second bat alion of the 145th regiment mov jiason ng under a heavy smoke screen crossed the Pasig river near its mouth in assault boats The move caught the Japanese by surprise The Yanks landed near the wrecked Philippines mint crossed the golf course and poured through another breach in the wall 1600 PLANES BLAST GERMANY Hit Shipping Targets in London than 1600 American warplanes bombed oil ail and shipping targets across vide area of northwestern Ger many Saturday The big fleet numbering more han 1100 Flying Fortresses and liberators and about 500 escorting ighters attacked oil refineries at Tamburg Harburg and Misburg and nai Uboat yards in Ham jurg and Bremen Unidentified railway targets in northwestern Germany also were lombed heavily Radio Berlin said other raidinj ieets from Italy were on the at tack over Austria Yanks Strike o Liberate 2146 Allies By C YATES McDANIEL Manila P I with quick precision from the sky by and and over water deep into enemy territoryat dawn Friday American troops and Filipino uerrillas brought relief and free dom to 2146 allied and cobel igerent captives in the civilian nternment camp at Los Bnnos 30 miles south of Manila In writing the 4th heroic act in the drama of liberation in the Philippines 1500 men of the llth airborne division and American led Filipinos slew the Japanese camp guard to the last man and within a matter of hours carried to safety 1589 Americans 329 Britons 36 Canadians 33 Aus tralians 89 Dutch 22 Poles 10 Norwegians 16 Italians 1 French man and 1 Nicaraguan Only 2 of the captives were wounded in the brief battle at the camp and in the running light with snipers which followed Two of the rescuing force were killed and 2 wounded The attack was opened with the paratroopers under the command of Col Robert H Soule dropped directly on the camp surprising the Japanesegarrison at its morn ing calisthenics At the same time the guerrilla forces which had quietly infiltrated the area sur rounding the camp for several days attacked by land By the time the Japanese com mander and his staff and 243 guards had been killed amphibi ous troops reached the nearby leaches of Laguna de Bay and began evacuating1 the internees in STILL NO SIGN QF RESISTANCE AGAINST DRIVE First Army Forges Solid Bridgehead in Dueren Area Paris troops smashed 2 tq 5 miles beyond the Roer river Saturday and there still were no signs of a German stand against the huge offensive now within 19 miles of Cologne and 12 of Muenchen Gladbach General Eisenhower asserted the goal of this army push was to destroy the German army of the Bhine on this northern end of the western front and that he expected to be able to do it He termed progress of the first and 9th armies certainly satisfactory U S infantrymen overran 17 wns and the prisoner toll soared above 1400 as they fought for ward across the Cologne plain All objectives are being taken ahead of schedule particularly north of Linnich on the 9th army front where the speed of advance showed a marked increase AP Correspondent W e s Gallagher wrote Saturday night from the front These men were a dozen miles or less from industrial Muenchen Gladbach and 24 from Duesseldorf Bridgeheads had been secured along a 22mile front and had been pushed more than 4 miles The internees lined Up for Perry Editor to Visit England Fron Perry G E WJiitehead editor and publisher the Perry Daily Chief and president ot the Iowa Press association has ac cepted an invitation to visit Eng land and the western front and said Saturday he planned to leave in April for 6 to 8 weeks overseas Whitehead the 3rd Iowa news paperman to visit England dur ing the war will serve as a cor respondent for Iowa Press asso ciation papers His invitation for the trip came through the British embassy in Washington Iowa newspapermen who al ready have visited wartime Eng land are W Earl Hall managing editor of the Mason City Globe Gazette and Ralph Leysen man aging editor of the Davenport Times morning roll call were quickly surrounded by a defense cordon and motor vehiclespolled uptb remove litter efiteb group was then taken to Although pinched by hunger the liberated captives ot Los Banes were in stronger condition than were their fellow sufferers in Santo Tomas prison camp Of their number niany of them in advanced years were carried to freedom in littersvsi Fridays dramatic raSjribrought the total of men chil dren rescued this ap proximately 7700 This great release may berjjie last although American forces may come across other civilian and war prisoners as they pene trate deeper into Luzon Truly as Gen Douglas Mac Arthur said Gocl was certainly with us today Nothing could be more satisfy g to a soldiers heart than this scue 1 am deeply grateful acArthur said in a special state ent issued after tho rescue was nnounced The daring exploit matched he rama of the rescue by American angers and Filipino guerrillas of he men of Bataan Corregidor nd Singapore from the Cabana uan prison camp and the libera on of Internees from Santo omas university and Bllibid rison Elements of the llth division Once inside veteran Yank street Fighters began the job of build ngbybuilding cleanout The Yanks could have pulver ized the Intramuros and every one inside with aerial bombs long before but they wanted to spare civilian lives Nevertheless many noncombatants were injured per haps killed in the intense but necessary artillery barrage An hour after the troops en tered the first of the civilians be gan to trickle out In a half hour ibout 30 civilians were huddled near the wall of Lctran univer sity By midafternoon most of the assault troops were within the walls It declared that without the na tional socialist reconstruction there would neither be a German reich nor a German people today Weather Report FORECAST City Cloudy Saturday night and Sunday Occasional light rain beginning Sunday morning and changing to snow late Sunday Continued mile Saturday night with lowest tem perature about 15 becoming much colder late Sunday Iowa Cloudy and continued warm Saturday night with light rain beginning in the southwest por tion and overspreading the stale early Sunday changing i snow and becoming much colde late Sunday Minnesota Cloudy Saturday an Sunday Light snow north por lion Saturday and Sunday an light rain or snow south portio Sunday changing to snow flur ries entire state late Sunda night Much colder northwes portion Saturday night and en tire state Sunday afternoon an night Warmer south portio Saturday night IN MASON CITY GlobeGazette weather statistics Maximum Friday 38 Minimum Friday 5 At 8 a rn Saturday 16 YEAR AGO Maximum 38 Minimum 20 rossed Laguna bay the night be ore the morning of the attack hilc the paratroopers were tak ng off from Nichols field in Ma ila Movements of the guerrillas nto the area adjacent to Los anos were so skillfully conducted ley went undetected by the jngle sensitive Japanese until e moment of the strike The complicated operation went ff so smoothly that the first load f 1000 men women and children eachett safety within 4 hours of he moment the first paratroopers Iropped to overpower the un nspecting guards Before they were completely out of danger however the in beyond the floodmuddied Roer First army troops forged a solid bridgehead in the Dueren area and fought to clean out the last Ger man resistance in the city 20 miles from Cologne another late dis patch declared Earlier Saturday the Americans were reported in control of onefourth of Dueren A steady stream of reinforce ments was crossing into theDuer en sector the dispatch added The nearest approach at Nieder zeicbetween Dueren and Juelich U men clearing Juelich wiped out resistance in the ancient moated citadel there after shells smashed that cluster of buildings and then drove Z miles beyond Juelich down the broad highway due east to Co logne They were within 21 miles of the Rhine city Scottish troops in the Canadian sector farther north mean while struck out afresh in drives carrying to within less than a mile of the road hub of Weeze Troops crossing between fallen Juelich and besieged Dueren cap tured Niederzeir 19 miles short of bombrubbled Cologne Farther north the U SNinth armys deep est surge toppled Baal 12 miles from Muenchen Gladbach The American battle line was being pressed forward over the trenchslit Cologne plain against an enemy who was stunned by the first shock of the assault Berlin broadcasts declared the full iorce of Gen Eisenhowers push had yet to be reached and that 40 AngloAmerican divisions are thus far employed in the west ern offensive The German high command re ported bitter fighting but asserted the Americans had been unable to penetrate to our main battle field in major depth The Germans staggered by tre mendous shelling and hampered by the aerial sealoff of the battle field struck back with sixtank led counterattacks which failed to halt the American onrush U S First army troops cleared onefourth of Dueren on the Roers east bank 20 miles from Cologne on the Rhine But thick and strong defenses lie ahead German resistance was reported stiffening Through the night more men and supplies were hurried across the muddy flooded Roer river breached at last in sudden power ful onslaught i South of this breakthrough bid the U S 3rd army seized 16 more ternees survived 2 short sharp s d j d t 4 clashes with snmers and natrols 1 a sectyor Germans n northern Holland are thinning heir forces pulling back to the jssel river line from the Arnhem clashes with snipers and patrols from the 8000 Japanese soldiers estimated by intelligence officers as being within striking distance of the operation Some of the internees were thin many were pale but gener ally they looked better than the Santo Tomas internees because the Japanese had been enforcing food only restrictions at Los Banos since October Thereafter they subsisted for the most part on a basic diet of a few mouth fuls of unhusked rice daily BULLETIN Cairo Minister Ahmed Mahcr was shot and wounded Saturday night while the Egyptian parliament was debating whether axis to declare war on the Buy your War Bonds and Stamps from your GlobeGazette carrier boy area north to the Zuider Zee an other front dispatch declared Doughboys of the 1st and 9th armies headed back lor the Rhine where their fathers stood peace watch in 191819 were driving well beyond the LinnichJuelich Dueren road by nightfall Friday Their push presumably hatched at Yalta to coincide with huge Russian operations seized all ot Juelich except the Ancoent wide moated citadel there and envel oped Baal Korrcnzlg Brolch and Hambach In brisk street fighting Six German divisions spread along the Roer front were spread too thin to halt the drive but they were backed up by still powerful German forces Some of these however had been sucked out of position by other pan zer divisions were rushed over a week ago into the defense against